A wide variety of special-purpose and general-purpose computing platforms, including hardware and software, has been developed to address a myriad of diverse applications. Unfortunately, more often than not, a particular platform is incompatible with all other platforms. Considerable time and effort is required to automatically translate or convert data and applications from one platform to another to provide interoperability, which is typically marginal at best. Even after most automatic conversions, manual manipulation is invariably required to produce a similar or identical result. As such, the benefits of using a particular hardware or software platform or application are often lost when the application or data are converted to another platform or format. Thus, it is desirable to utilize a single platform when possible, or to provide a method of converting data which preserves its native properties and does not require significant manual manipulation.
Applications historically plagued by incompatibilities between operating platforms include, among others, direct mail marketing and/or focused or targeted advertising. Microcomputers in combination with high-speed printing machines can be used to generate customized documents which include variable data based on the recipient, or any of a number of other criteria. Typically, an advertising, marketing, or graphic design agency creates a letter, brochure, catalog, or other literature which is merged with an appropriate database to generate the customized documents. However, the computing platform used to generate the graphic or letter is often incompatible with the computing platform used for the variable information. This requires conversion between platforms resulting in significant manual manipulation and an additional approval cycle which adds cost and delays delivery of the final product. For example, a form document may be generated using a Macintosh computer which is preferred for its graphic design capabilities and associated application software while the variable data is collected using a mainframe computer and placed in a standard data interchange file. The preferred mail merging software runs only on a PC which requires conversion of the Macintosh graphic design document for merging with the variable data contained in the data interchange file. Once converted, the graphic design must be manually manipulated through a trial and error process. Typefaces, font sizes, graphic placement, etc. must be iteratively adjusted to recreate a similar looking document which must then be approved by the customer since there are almost always some differences from the originally designed document.